Social media is an amazing thing for so many reasons. Unfortunately, along with the good comes the bad. For the most part, when you’re sharing your life on social media, you want it to be pretty, clean, and neat, and maybe even a little bit of real life thrown in there. The unfortunate thing, though, is that most people are going to judge you by your highlight reel.
Don’t know what a ‘highlight reel’ is? It is those adorable, perfectly lit, fun, wonderful moments in life that you are sharing across your social media feed – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter … It’s what you see which causes you to form beliefs about a person that you truly don’t know in real life. True, sometimes you do know these people in real life and have built personal relationships with them, but more often than not, we have virtual, surface level friendships with those we follow on social media.
I think it is important to realize and know that the highlight reel is what a person WANTS to share with you. They’re not sharing their dirty house, the toddler tantrums over underwear, the fights between spouses, the uncomfortable conversations with friends … you know, the HARD parts of life. Sometimes people will share a little of the hard, but the day to day hard? Generally, you keep that to yourself and deal with it. Who wants to read about how you cried yourself to sleep because of the concern you have for your child? Or that when your kid had a tantrum today, you wanted to cry right along with them? On social media, we are influencers and want to share the happy and the bright with the world.
So please, whatever you do, don’t fall into the the comparison trap of being jealous of what you see on someone’s highlight reel. Look around at your life. Think of all the beautiful blessings in your life. Know that you are where you are because God has you there for a reason.
Yes, my highlight reel may be pretty and full of fun things, playdates, and blogging, but you know what? You only know half of the story, at best.
